I bought a NA '86 base model last week and noticed today that the actuators were stuck in the closed position. I got them unstuck and they operate smootly by hand. The problem is, I don't think they are opening when they should.(3800rpm)

I tried the trick of putting grease on the actuator shaft, driving the car, then looking to see if the grease had moved.(it hadn't moved.)

The haynes manual talks a lot about the actuators that are moved by the airpump, but very little about the ones that are moved by exhaust('86) Has anyone had this problem before? Where do I start looking to cure this?

 

I had some that were real tough to move, one was frozen. After a good soaking in liquid wrench I got it freed up. I used a vacumm/pump used to bleed brakes ($30 tool) to make sure they were working.



Short of putting a camcorder under your hood it's hard to tell if they are really working or not. Probably better to wire them fully open then have them not working at all.



I believe the Haynes manual is incorrect here (I'm sure someone else will correct me if this is wrong). The 86-88 use EXHAUST pressure to open the 6 ports. The 89-91 used the air pump. There are articles around the net on how to make your 86-88 work like the newer 89-91 ones. It looked too much like a HACK to me.



I haven't hooked mine up yet, but I plan to use trunk solieniods to POP mine open electrically at whatever RPM I choose. Something like these:







I haven't heard of anyone else trying this.

 

Actually somewhere out there on the web there is a group that has set up a solinoid to open them hooked up to an MSD switch to mesure the RPM's.



I don't recall the site however. I'll have to look in my favorites when I get home.